( ... ) customs on which the commonwealth, we are told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected, but quite forgot. And what am I to ay of the men? For our customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and now we are called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause. Through our vices, rather than from happenstance, we retain the word ^republic^ long after we have lost the reality."

If Taft, upholding the venerable principles of law, did not quite consider his time a sunken age, still he believed that America, with the rest of the world, was sliding toward a gulf of injustice; and mighty exertions would be required to secure freedom, order, and justice for unborn generations. (...)

That centralized and consolidated power was nominally "democratic" did not make it harmless, Taft understood. In the radio debates between Taft and T.V. Smith, Representative Smith had said, "The greatest success of the Constitution ... is that a century and a half it has won the people from an ancient distrust of government to an acceptance of it as their friend And why not, pray? A democratic government ^is^ the people themselves incorporated to make corporate competitors useful ... "

Taft had replied, in effect, Thomas Jefferson would have replied: in matters of power, we dare not put our trust in man, but must bind him down with the chains of the Constitution. Government may restrain "the power of wealth"; but "it must (...)